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Goddess Sopdet name |
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Goddess Sopdet |
Goddess Sopdet embodying the star Sirius (Dog-star), herald of the annual Nile deluge by its bright appearing in the dawn sky in July (Heliacal rising). The Egyptian name of this goddess is Sopdetfrom which gains the Greek version Sothis, ordinarily used in Egyptology. She is pictured as a lady with a star on her head.
Maybe as early as
Dynasty I Sothis is named bringer of the New
Year and the Nile alluvion the agricultural calender leaded off with the rise of the river Nile. Sothis so became linked like the constellation Orion with the successfulness leaving from the fertile silt forgot by the losing waters. In the Pyramid Texts, where there is hard prove of an early Egyptian astral cult, the king joins with his sister Sothis who gives birth to the Morning-star. She is likewise the kings guide in the heavenly Field of Rushes. In afterwards funerary texts of broken courtiers Sothis has got mother and nurse.